“Lawrence of Arabia” may be the most famous single-gender film ever: in 3-plus hours, David Lean’s 1962 desert epic features zero women in speaking roles.

But Diane English’s upcoming movie “The Women” goes one better, taking men out of the frame entirely — as did the original, campy 1939 version, starring Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. “No men whatsoever,” says English. “Not even in the background. Not even as extras. No images, photographs, paintings.” In a summer that’s been all about comic book men and boys — Iron-, Bat-, Hell- — English’s film, opening Sept. 12, is a who’s who of Hollywood superwomen: Annette Bening and Meg Ryan , plus Jada Pinkett Smith, Eva Mendes, Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher, Debra Messing.

“We were on the street a lot,” English says. “We had to photograph in a way that felt cinematic, but not so widely that you would see men driving in cars. We did a lot of aerial shots.” English even hired a mostly female crew to work on the movie.

Score one for female solidarity! The only potentially non-feminist element is the film’s storyline, in which a married woman finds out her (unseen) husband is cheating on her with a salesgirl. Indeed, the tagline for the original film was “It’s all about men!” But English swears she’s used the affair as a mere jumping-off point for her version, which celebrates female friendship and the ways in which a modern women can reinvent herself. “It’s a very different journey for [Meg Ryan] than there was for Norma Shearer,” she says. “Our motto is, ‘It’s all about the women.’ “